


When You Can Dream, Then You Can Start

by Yesitstyles



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: (I mean they are in a relationship but it's not explicit), (in another sense there's nothing explicit here at all), All I Want For Christmas Is Love Actually, Also Perrie if you're looking for it a bit?, M/M, Side Ziall if you squint - Freeform, Ugly Sweaters, and Cinderella sort of, disco christmas tunes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:22:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2847554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yesitstyles/pseuds/Yesitstyles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like all good fairy tales, it takes them three tries.</p><p>Or, the Christmas AU that is really, definitely, absolutely NOT a Cinderella story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When You Can Dream, Then You Can Start

**Author's Note:**

> Alternately titled "I'm sorry I slept on your toilet"
> 
> Unam Partem is latin for One Direction; I claim no knowledge of either Latin or fraternities. I do know they're usually given Greek names, but it wasn't an elegant translation at all.

**One.**

It starts on a Thursday night, which always means an excess of drunk students.  Why students choose Thursday to party, rather than Friday, Harry will never understand.

He works the night shift Thursdays, in the chain cafe on the corner that is nothing like the artsy local business he was looking to work at but couldn't get. The hours are kind of shit, and the customers more so, but the pay’s...well, it pays. And his coworkers are decent, and he gets a lot of free drinks.

He’s drinking a peppermint mocha when the group comes tumbling in, shaking snow from their hair and tracking slush with their stumbling footsteps. They’re loud and cheerful and very drunk, and for a Thursday night they’re utterly unremarkable. Harry puts down his mocha and takes a couple slurred orders and one surprisingly coherent one for water all around, and then he takes pity on the boy trying to water his pissed friends and helps him carry a tray of paper cups over to where they've all sat down.

“Thanks so much,” the boy, introduced as Liam, says for the tenth time, as he and Harry set down the trays.

“S’not a problem,” Harry shrugs. “It’s good of you to do this.”

Liam snorts and looks around. “I can’t trust them on their own, and it’s my turn to supervise. Anyway, thanks again.”

“Cheers, happy Christmas,” Harry says, and goes back to the floor, where Niall is mixing himself another strange concoction at the bar.

Liam, luckily, keeps his friends mostly in check, so Harry doesn't have to wipe up a single spilled drink. They stick around a little while but eventually their shepherd manages to herd them all back out into the cold, hats and gloves sorted and drinks politely dropped in the bin. Harry’s grateful.

Until about five minutes later, when he’s sent running to the girls’ washroom by a blood-curdling scream.

“There’s a boy asleep,” the girl hisses as she stalks out, “on the toilet seat.” She looks really offended, and Harry doesn't know what to say as she flings her scarf over her shoulder like a movie star and storms out of the shop. He hesitates just a bit before pushing open the door to the women’s room, which he’s not usually encouraged to go into - but this time of night, it’s only him and Niall on the floor.

There is, indeed, a boy asleep on the toilet seat when Harry peers in. He’s curled on the floor, arm up on the seat acting as a pillow. He looks a bit familiar, probably one of the drunk students from earlier. It can’t be comfortable, the way he’s sitting, but the boy is out cold, as Harry finds when he tries to shake him awake. Harry feels a brief spike of panic before the boy finally mumbles something and blinks blearily awake.

He keeps mumbling as Harry maneuvers him up and out of the washroom, awkwardly, as he seems quite content to rest limp and loose-limbed.

After some deliberation, Harry finally leaves him slumped on one of the benches by the counter, gets him a glass of water and decides to keep an eye on him. If anyone but Niall was on shift tonight, they’d have insisted Harry leave the boy on the street to fend for himself, but Harry frankly doesn’t think the boy could handle it and Niall’s good enough to agree.

Harry’s mixing himself a peppermint eggnog (‘tis the season for peppermint everything, there’s no such thing as _too festive, Gem_ ) and humming along to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You” playing over the speakers when the boy finally stumbles over. Harry doesn’t notice him at first, and startles when he looks up.

The boy sways slightly where he stands next to the pickup counter, but his eyes are fixed on Harry. “‘ave you-” he starts, then beckons Harry closer. “Curly. Seen m’ friends ‘round?” He has a heavy northern accent, which Harry suspects may be strengthened by the drinks he’s had.

Harry raised his eyebrows. “The group? They've left,” he says. Then, feeling sorry, “Do you want me to call you a cab?”

The boy sways dangerously towards the gingerbread display, and Harry tenses, ready to make a grab for them or him. “You should probably go home,” he presses when the boy doesn't respond.

“Louis,” says the boy, out of the blue.

Harry...decides to take it as an introduction. “Alright, Louis, I’m calling a cab,” he decides.

“Do - no,” Louis shakes his head. “Don’t need one.” His hands land heavily on the counter and he shakes his head vigorously. “Want - ‘ave you seen me friends?” He looks around again, and Harry sighs. Thursday nights are always trouble.

“‘Bout - yea big,” Louis is saying, waving wildly, “short hair,” he presses his hand to his head as though to demonstrate. “Bee...like a bee…”

Harry coughs. “The buzzcut?”

Louis tries to snap his fingers, and fails. “Buzz! Liam. His head is buzzed. Like-"

“Like a bee, yes,” Harry tries to tame a smile. He casts a glance over at Niall, who’s made himself surprisingly scarce - of course, Niall is at the other end of the floor, laughing at them. Harry glances towards the phone, willing Niall to call for a taxi. Niall only laughs harder.

Harry reluctantly turns back to Louis, who has taken a few steps back towards where his friends had been seated. He looks sort of soft and harmless, feathery fringe tucked under a warm hat, eyes warm.

“Hey - uh, Louis,” Harry calls, “seriously, I want to help you get home. Where do you live?”

Louis swings around to pin Harry with a look of narrow-eyed suspicion. “Depends who’s asking.”

Harry lets out a long breath and glances at Niall again, this time in question. He gestures off the floor.

Niall waves him away, face tinged pink and still laughing.

Harry hopes meanly that Niall gets a sudden rush of more drunk customers as he steps out from behind the counter and towards Louis. “Come on, let’s get you home.”

Louis allows Harry to guide him out onto the street, shivering as the cold wind hits him. Luckily, he's hung on to his coat - Harry, in nothing but his apron and t-shirt, swears quietly at the bitter sting of winter. It’s snowing lightly, soft flakes that catch in the light of the street lamps.

Louis seems to be cooperating as Harry walks him to the corner and hails a cab, leaning into Harry’s shoulder, which is honestly not unwelcome in the cold, though the fabric of his coat isn’t especially warm.

Louis even lets Harry bundle him into the cab without much fuss, but as Harry is trying to close the door, he sticks a foot out.

“What’re you _doing_ ,” he demands, suddenly wide awake.

Harry tries not to grimace. “I’m sending you home. It’ll be nice and warm, right? Much nicer than out here,” he tries, but Louis is having none of it. He pushes Harry off with a shout, and then reaches for his own foot.

“Hey,” the cabbie cuts in, sounding irritated, “is-” only Harry doesn’t catch the rest because next thing he knows there’s a shoe flying at his face. He nearly ducks in time, gets clipped in the head as it flies by.

“Hey,” he protests, but the door to the cab has slammed shut and then the car is driving off and Harry is left standing outside the shop with his fingers turning numb and his head aching and not a clue as to what just happened.

 

**Two.**

“You should really get that back to the guy,” Zayn says for the twelfth time this week, nodding to the shoe sat on the bookshelf by the front door to their flat.

Harry barely glances up from his notes, just hums and highlights another passage in his Religious Studies reading. He doesn’t have to look. Zayn’s been on him ever since he heard the story, laughed for five minutes when Niall told him and proceeded to pester Harry ceaselessly about finding his Cinderella.

The shoe is not glass. It isn’t anything fancy at all, really, just a sort of smelly white vans - or is it van? Harry’s not sure. He doesn’t usually talk about vans in the singular. He knows he should try to return it, but it’s been nearly a week now and Louis still hasn’t been back to the shop, so it doesn’t really matter. He’ll bring it back in to work tomorrow. For real, this time.

Harry looks back at his notes and tries to focus, but Hinduism is big and complicated and nothing makes sense. He’s too tired, anyway, and Niall definitely lied when he told Harry this was a bird course. “Try Hinduism and Buddhism, Niall said,” Harry mutters. “It’ll be easy, he said”.

Zayn, who is putting his boots on by the door, snorts. “I’m off to see him now,” he says, straightening. “Come along.” He waits in the doorway expectantly, probably already knows how Harry will respond.

He drags it out anyways, just to seem a little more dedicated than he really is. “I shouldn’t,” he says (already capping his pen). “My final paper’s due in four days,” he explains (he bookmarks the page).

Zayn doesn’t play along, just watches in what Harry thinks is a rather smug silence.

He gives up and drops his book with a satisfying thump on top of his other notes, sighing as he stands. “You’re an enabler.” He points an accusing finger at Zayn as he walks to the door and grabs his coat.

Five minutes later they’re walking towards campus, bundled up warmly against the biting wind. It’s a short walk, but Harry’s chilled to the bone by the time they reach the lecture hall, wishing he’d worn a scarf. It’s a battle to push through the stream of students exiting the hall, but the warmth is a great relief. They come in from the door at the top of the hall, and peer across the seats for the familiar blond head.

“There he is,” says Zayn, pointing, and when Harry looks he sees Niall near the front, talking to a vaguely familiar boy. Harry narrows his eyes, something tugging at his memory.

“That’s him!” he says suddenly.

Zayn raises an eyebrow. “That’s what I just said.”

“No, that’s-” but the boy - Liam, Harry’s sure of it - is already heading towards the downstairs door. Harry dashes off down the stairs, apologizing as he pushes through clusters of lingering students. By the time he's reached Niall, Liam’s already vanished.

“Niall,” Harry says urgently, “who was that?”

“Who, Liam Payne? Just a classmate. Don’t know him too well,” Niall shrugs. “One of the leaders of Unam Partem,” he adds, and Harry gives him a blank look.

“The fraternity,” Zayn supplies, stepping in beside them.

Harry blinks. “Alright.” he’s never heard of it, but he doesn’t say so, instead getting straight to the point: “He was with the shoe guy.”

Niall’s face lights up gleefully. Zayn’s snort is at least slightly more subtle. Harry hates them both. “Prince charming?” Niall cackles, then, “Liam came in that night?”

Harry shakes his head. “Not important. I need to get ahold of Liam, and return that shoe.” He frowns, thinking. “Maybe he’s part of the frat?” he muses. “Niall, can you tell me where I can find it?”

“Actually,” Niall grins. “There’s a Christmas party this Friday. You should come, bring Charming’s shoes. It’s the last day of your finals, isn’t it? Go celebrate!”

Harry looks skeptically at him. “What if he’s not there? And I can’t just crash a party.”

“First off,” Niall holds up a hand, “it’s a frat party, you can crash it. Anyway, Liam told me to invite people.”

“And if he isn’t there?” Harry presses.

“Doesn't matter! Enjoy yourself, it’s a party!”

He shouldn't, with his train home at seven the next morning, and his sleep schedule already fucked from finals, but Harry finds himself nodding along anyway. He does need to return the shoe before the holidays.

“Alright, I’ll go. Help me look?”

“Sorry, mate, got plans.”

“He’s with me on Friday,” Zayn cuts in. “Don’t you have, like, work, though?”

Harry freezes. “That’s - uh, I’ll work around that. I’m sure Magee won’t, er - he’ll let me take another shift.”

++

“Ed, I need to ask you a really big favour,” Harry says into his phone Friday afternoon. He shouldn't have left it so late, and he’s kicking himself for it - but if he’s honest, he never had much of a chance at convincing Magee to change the schedule. In his defence, he’s had two finals and a take-home in two days and really, the schematics of returning a lost shoe have not been on his mind. “I really need you to cover my shift tonight.”

Ed breathes out, a crackle through the speaker. “How late? I've got a gig tonight.”

Harry closes his eyes and bites his lip. “Shit, I’d forgotten,” he mutters. Then louder, “What time? I only need you to cover for a bit, I can be back-” he’s not sure how long it’ll take to track down a near-stranger in a crowded party. He’ll make it work, though. He has to.

Ed sighs again. “Absolute latest? Eleven. It’s a late enough gig, you’re lucky. Is it that sweater party? Niall mentioned something about that.”

“Eleven is perfect, I’ll take anything,” Harry rushes gratefully. It takes a second for the last part to register. “What sweater party?”

“No? Over at Unam Partem, you know,” Harry wonders if he’s the only person who hadn’t heard of this. “It’s an ugly sweater party.”

Harry leans back until his head knocks against the wall. “Those aren’t...like, mandatory, are they?”

Ed snorts, another gust of static over the phone. “Yeah, they are. Sorry.”

Harry thumps his head against the wall again, cursing Niall for not warning him sooner.

“Listen,” Ed says after a pause, “I think I can help. I’ve got a sweater you can borrow, you can come pick it up tonight.”

Harry breathes out in a rush and pushes himself off the wall. “Ed, thanks - thank you so much. I really-”

“One condition,” Ed cuts in. “I actually need the sweater for my gig. So you need to be back by eleven on the dot, alright? Any later and I won’t have time to change and head over. Got it?”

Harry nods, even though Ed can’t see him. “Got it. Eleven. I’ll be there, thanks again for all this, I owe you.”

Ed heaves a long sigh, but Harry thinks he sounds fond as he says, “You do. Don’t be late.”

He hangs up with a promise to give Harry a ride over, and he picks Harry up at a quarter to nine with the sweater in his beat-up Ford Fiesta, which is probably older than they are. He passes the sweater over as Harry buckles in, carefully not commenting on the state of the car, though he’d swear it gets worse every time he sees it.

“Thanks,” Harry says as he unfolds the sweater, and then he has to take a moment before he can articulate how great it is. It’s baggy and red, with a fluffy Christmas tree on the front adorned with what looks to be real tinsel and a dozen gold bells. “Spectacular,” he manages, giving it a shake so all the little bells jingle. He pulls it on after a bit of a struggle with the seat belt, and turns to Ed.

“How do I look?”

Ed spares a glance from the road. “Oh, very nice. Well done.”

“Excellent.” Harry grins down at himself again.

It’s not a long drive to the house, decked absurdly in more lights and tinsel than Harry’s ever seen on a building.

“Thanks so much,” he says again as he’s getting out.

“Just make sure you’re back by eleven. That’s when the spell breaks.”

Harry whips back around. “Have you been talking to Niall?”

Ed just laughs. “Close the door, it’s cold. Good luck!”

Harry’s still pouting a bit as he walks up to the porch, already crowded with people who’ve stepped out for air. It’s probably not going to amount to anything, but it’s worth a try to ask around for Louis, so he pulls aside a small pink-haired girl with a friendly enough face.

“Hi, sorry, have you seen - I’m looking for a guy named Louis? Brown hair-” she cuts him off with a laugh.

“Shockingly blue eyes? One of the frat leaders? Yes, I know Louis.”

Harry falters. “With Liam? He and Liam, they’re both leaders here?”

She gives him a bit of a sideways look. “Yeah, they are. Dunno where you’ll find them, but they’re both inside somewhere…”

Harry thanks her gratefully and heads inside. Over an hour later, he’s still had no luck, and he's starting to give up hope.

The party is overcrowded with people, and given that everyone’s wearing some sort of hideous jumper, the heat is turned way too high. Harry’s sweaty, he’s been listening to the same disco Christmas carols on a loop for the past ninety minutes, and he’s not sure he’s ever going to find Louis here. The shoe in its plastic bag from the coffee shop keeps bumping on his knees, and people keep bumping into the rest of him both accidentally and deliberately. Normally, he’d be happy to talk and dance and enjoy the party, only he really needs to get rid of this shoe. Once he’s done that, maybe he’ll have time to enjoy himself.

It’s occurred to him that Louis may be just as drunk and disagreeable as he was at the coffee shop, and the longer he searches, the more Harry wonders whether this was worth it. He doesn’t even know what’s possessed him to come all the way to a frat party, to rope Ed into helping him, to go on a wild goose chase to find the guy. Maybe he’d be better to just find Liam, hand the shoe off to him, and Harry’s mostly made up his mind to do that and take the rest of the short night to enjoy the party when he’s nearly knocked over by a very drunk boy in an elf hat.

His friend comes immediately behind him, in a dark red sweater reading “happy HOLLA days”. “Sorry,” Elf Hat’s friend says quickly, pulling him away, and Harry rights himself.

“S’alright,” he says, meeting the friend’s eyes. “Louis,” he blurts.

He wonders suddenly whether Louis will even recognize him.

Louis frowns at him for a half second. Then it seems to dawn on him, eyes widening.

“You were at the coffee shop! You’re coffee boy.” He stares for a minute, then pulls back, allowing his friend to drag him into the crowd. “Sorry, about that night. Thanks for getting me home,” he calls over the noise of the party, and Harry lurches forward belatedly and grabs his wrist before he can vanish. He isn’t losing track of Louis before he can deliver the shoe.

“I have something-” he tugs the bag in his other hand, caught a bit in the crowd, before Louis. “Your shoe,” he says, feeling absurdly proud of himself.

Louis seems to still, turning to face Harry properly. His friend has vanished into the crowd.

“You brought my shoe?”

“Yeah, it’s - actually, it’s why I’m here now?” Only as he’s saying it does he realize it might seem a little weird. He’s put a whole lot of effort into returning a scuffed sneaker.

Louis, at least, looks oddly touched. “Thanks,” he says, with a confused smile. Harry hadn’t really noticed before, but the girl from earlier was right about his very blue eyes.

“I, uh, figured you’d want it back,” he says haltingly, but Louis’ expression is already clearing into a crinkly-eyed smile.

“Yeah, I was missing it. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry says, smiling back helplessly. There’s a sudden pause in the music, and Harry, ever the romantic, thinks oddly that he can feel possibility in the air.

“Kiss!”

They start, and Harry looks about for the voice to find an uncomfortable number of people looking at them.

“Kiss, kiss,” someone starts to chant, and others take it up. He looks up.

“Who put this up?” Louis says, “Was it Liam’s idea?”

Harry just stares at the mistletoe - he’s always thought it was sort of a lovely idea, but he’d pictured it being a little more romantic.

Somebody turns the music down a bit as the next song starts. Harry’s face burns, and he turns back to Louis apologetically.

“I only meant to return your-” he starts, but Louis surges up and catches the words on his lips. Harry flounders, his mouth still trying to form words even as his hands come clumsily to rest on Louis’ waist. The shoe bag bumps between them, but it’s forgotten easily behind the realization that Louis is, in fact, a great kisser. Harry relaxes into it, tilts down and pulls Louis as close as he can around the stupid shoe.

The buzzing in his back pocket doesn’t immediately register, caught up as he is. He pulls back as soon as it does with a curse. “Sorry,” he mutters, grabbing his phone, hoping it’s only Niall or his mum or someone calling him - but no, it’s the alarm to leave. He’d thought he had more time.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, as a funky interpretation of Deck the Halls surges back up around them, “I really have to go,” and then he’s shoving the bag into Louis’ hands and slipping off through the crowd. He thinks he hears Louis calling after him, something about a name - and it’s only much later, after he’s left the party and handed Ed back his sweater, that Harry realizes he never gave Louis his.

 

**Three.**

“Shut up, Niall,” Harry says mutinously, and to his surprise, Niall’s cackling does quiet a bit.

“You’re right, sorry,” he says with a suspiciously straight face, “This isn’t a joke. You’ve just lost your Prince Charming. ”

Harry shoots a dark look over his shoulder at Niall as he throws yet another button-up in his suitcase. “I am not Cinderella,” he insists again. He hates his friends, they’re terrible. And he hates himself for not giving Louis his name, and for dashing off last night without an explanation, and also for booking himself a train at seven in the morning. On top of that, he still has the groovy rendition of The Little Drummer boy playing in his head.

This time, when Zayn interjects with, “You’re right, he’s Cinderella,” Harry doesn’t argue. He’d take his life being a fairy tale if he could see Louis again.

He tosses one last sweater on top of the Christmas presents for his family and shuts the case, and then it takes Zayn and Niall both to help him zip it shut. By the time they’ve won the battle, it’s getting late, and they rush quickly through their goodbyes, Harry still calling out well-wishes for the holidays over his shoulder as the door closes behind him.

He misses the bus to the train station by seconds, watches it drive by the end of the street with a sinking heart.

He does catch the next one, but he knows already that unless the train’s held up, he’s going to miss it.

Sure enough, by the time he arrives at the station, it’s already gone. This is not, in fact, the first time he’s missed his train, or he’d be fully panicking by now - as it is, he knows they’ll allow him a second ticket, and he’s nice and polite as the lady finds him another train - two trains, actually, because they’re so busy he’s going to have to make a detour. He winces when she tells him the time it’ll take, but that’s what he gets for missing his own train the week before Christmas.

On top of that, he’s got another two hours to kill now before his next train leaves, so he settles down in a cafe off the platform to wait. He pulls out a worn out copy of the third Harry Potter, because Christmas always feels like the season for Harry Potter, and drinking a peppermint hot chocolate when he hears a cough above him. He glances up, and freezes.

“Louis?” Harry frowns. “What are you doing here?”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “I’m here for my train. Missed the first one,” he adds with a wince.

“Good,” Harry blurts. “I mean- not, not good. I mean, me, too.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “Good,” he echoes, lips twitching. “We can entertain each other, then.”

Harry can only stare, baffled, as Louis takes the seat opposite him. He stretches his legs out beside them, and he’s wearing a pair of white vans. The left one has a familiar scuff on the toe.

“Thanks for getting that back,” Louis says, following Harry’s look.

Harry finds himself grinning, though he’s not entirely sure why. “No problem,” he says, even though it was a bit of an adventure, trying to return the shoe. “Harry,” he adds, remembering this time.

Louis raises his eyebrows, and glances down at the book on the table.

“My name,” Harry clarifies quickly. “I only realized after I’d left, how I forgot to give it to you.”

“Ah, thank you,” says Louis with a grin, “I was going to resort to hunting you down using the bag you gave me. That is your shop, yes?”

Harry startles a laugh. “I think so, yeah,” he confirms. “You were going to look for me? But you’ve been already.”

“Well, I didn’t remember the name,” says Louis, “I was a bit drunk, if you remember.” He looks a tiny bit chagrined, and goes on, “Sorry about that, by the way.”

Harry tries to tame his smile. “It was a terrible inconvenience,” he tries to say, only he can’t keep the laughter out of his voice.

Louis smiles in return, and there’s a moment where they’re just sitting there, grinning like idiots and Harry is suddenly very glad he got hit in the head by a stranger’s shoe.

“I’m very glad, anyway, that you returned my shoe,” Louis says again. “I felt a bit like Cinderella.”

Harry tries to pout at that, but he’s too busy laughing. And he would protest, but what he says instead is, “I think I’d rather be the princess.”

Louis’ eyes glitter like a Christmas tree. “I think that can be arranged.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually partially based on a true story, which happened to traumaticteacups on tumblr. It was written with wonderful last-minute editing help from [fookinloosah](http://fookinloosah.tumblr.com) (currently elfeanorcaldeer) and [haloeverlasting.](http://haloeverlasting.tumblr.com)  
> If anyone knows a way to put links in these, please put me out of my misery I'm very new to all this
> 
> EDIT:  
> The disco Christmas songs can be found [Here!](http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/code/5785833/the-salsoul-orchestras-christmas-jollies-stream-listen-to-the-classic)  
> And [ the sweater Louis is wearing](http://ivivefashion.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/search_ugly_christmas_sweater_images_ugly_christmas_sweater_diy_.jpg)


End file.
